Conservatives roar as Rubio tells a crowd of Boehner's demise

Conservatives at the Values Voter Summit in Washington cheered the coming end of House Speaker John Boehner’s reign, taking credit for the downfall of a man reviled by the right as too liberal to lead.

"Yesterday, John Boehner was speaker of the House. Y'all come to town, and somehow that changes!" shouted Sen. Ted Cruz, one of the most far-right Republicans in Congress and a regular irritant to leadership. “My only request is, can you come more often?"

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Cruz wasn’t the only one winning applause Friday by heralding Boehner’s exit. Marco Rubio cut into his prepared remarks to break the news of Boehner’s plan to resign, and the crowd roared.

The Florida senator and rising 2016 presidential contender, who claims conservative credentials but also an ability to reach more mainstream Republicans, said he wasn’t “here to bash” Boehner or “anyone” but added “the time has come to turn the page and allow a new generation of leaders.”

The rift between conservative and more mainstream Republicans has been playing out for more than four years in Congress and has in no small part driven strategies employed by the 2016 presidential contenders. Boehner's decision to leave Congress gave conservative activists an opportunity to take credit for shifting the GOP further to the right — and it could prove a useful talking point on the trail for the most conservative candidates, such as Cruz.

"What a great day for America," said conservative political activist David Bossie, president of Citizens United. He predicted there would be “new conservative leadership that will bring a conservative agenda" to the House of Representatives.

Cruz suggested that Republicans in leadership could have seen this coming. “There’s a frustration across this country,” Cruz said at the event. “It is volcanic. And it’s not complicated to understand why. … Every election, politicians promise to fight for conservative principles, and then the day after the election they come to Washington and they don’t fight for any of the principles they said they would.”

Cruz didn’t say who he would want to lead the House after Boehner’s resignation. But he took a swipe at leadership more broadly, saying what the current GOP-controlled Congress had accomplished was worse than “absolutely nothing” — citing the passing of the spending package with “corporate welfare and pork,” funding Obamacare and Planned Parenthood and confirming Loretta Lynch as attorney general.

“Every one of those decisions is exactly the same as what would have happened under Harry Reid and the Democrats,” Cruz said.

But other Republicans — notably those considered by the right to be more centrist — were already cautioning against allowing this moment to widen the fissures dividing the party.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, a former GOP presidential nominee, said he was saddened by the news that Boehner was stepping down and called for a truce between the "different wings of the party" as the GOP seeks to find a presidential nominee.

"I hope the lesson to all of us is now, that let's stop fighting with each other," McCain told reporters. "And let's sit down together and work out our differences with a common agenda to elect the next president of the United States, keep our majorities in the House and Senate, and put the brakes on this internecine strife that's been going on where we're spending our time attacking each other rather than the adversary which is obviously the Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama."

The crowd at the Values Voter Summit was clearly energized by the news, and it dominated conversations on the sidelines of the event.

"Conservatives created enough pressure he finally had to do something," said David Edwards, 51, a Cruz supporter.

"Our Republican leadership ... squandered the opportunity given by the electorate to do something," said Joe Glover of Canton, Texas, who cheered when he heard about Boehner. "I don't know who else to blame. He's the leader."